The US Beekeeping Survey — now led with the Apiary Inspectors of America, Auburn, and Oregon State — estimated 40.2% winter colony loss in 2024–25, the highest in the survey’s history, and 30.3% in 2025–26. Beekeepers have long treated about 20% winter loss as acceptable. Annual loss including summer still ran near 40% in 2025–26 after two years above 50%.
Those numbers describe a national sample. For an operation, the useful question is which of your colonies drifted from their own baseline. A sensing-and-records stack is for that: weight, sound, brood photos, and mite counts so labor goes to the boxes that changed. Treatment timing follows the colony, not the calendar. The winter you get is yours, measured against your prior years.
Source: Apiary Inspectors of America, 2025–26 survey; prior-year tables on the same program site.